Conventional machine scheduling problems are solved by creating orders that are scheduled to create a feasible machine schedule which fulfills certain hard or predefined constraints. Additionally, some optimization criteria can be defined which will affect the outcome of the machine schedule, such as a goal to minimize setup times or to prefer certain resources for production or to meet due dates or times.
Beside these existing optimization criteria, customers often demand a strategy to reduce order lead time, which may be defined as the time span between a start time of an earliest activity in an order and a finish time of a last activity in that order. This is particularly true for customers in certain industries, such as the semi-conductor industry.